ships in the night
by shiksa goddess
Summary: you keep passing me by/ or, Austin and Ally waste a lot of time figuring out how perfect they are for each other. Oneshot


**Title: ships in the night  
Inspiration/Playlist: Ships in the Night- Mat Kearney, Fast Car- Tracy Chapman, American Secrets-Parachute  
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it ain't mine.**

….. _… sixteen_…..  
When you're sixteen, the future is somewhat of a utopia, like an abstract fairytale.

He's just gotten his driver's license and it's his first passage to freedom.  
The first thing he wants to do is show it to Ally.

"Ugh." She groans. "Just rub it in my face. I hate having a May birthday."

Austin smiles and ruffles her hair playfully. "Aww, it's okay, Als. You'll be a big girl soon." He teases.

She sticks her tongue out at her best friend. "Jerk."

He clutches the keys to the 03' Chevy truck he'd begged his parents to let him buy. It was his first big purchase he'd been able to make with the money he earned from his gigs.  
"Well… you wanna go for a ride?"

She gives him a little smile. "Duh."

He helps her climb up into the truck. She looks even smaller than usual, sitting in the huge truck. It's kind of adorable, actually.

She doesn't say anything for the duration of their trip around Miami-Dade county's numerous highways. He's wasting gas, most definitely, but he's driving in his own truck with a beautiful girl who is also his best friend and he's a pop star and honestly mileage is so insignificant to him right now.

Ally spends the majority of the car ride with her elbow against the door and her eyes closed, head bopping to the music on her iPod.

He has this feeling of total contentment, like he could spend the rest of his life right here, right now, and it would be okay.

He glances over at her quickly when they're at a red light, and she meets his gaze. They share a quick smile.

"So how's Dallas?" He questions. It's not in a jealous manner, because Ally's his best friend and _just_his best friend. He wouldn't want it any other way. Besides, Dallas makes her happy, and that makes him happy.

"He's good!" She replies enthusiastically, still dancing to her music.

He smiles. "You know you can't dance when _you're_the one driving. "

She continues her little internal jam session. "I think we both know I can't dance, period."

He laughs. "Touche."

And then it's quiet. Somewhere along the way, a combination of the fading daylight and the music in her ears had lulled Ally to sleep. She looks so quiet and peaceful and suddenly he has the jarring thought of what she'd look like if she was dead.

It's a huge 'what the fuck, brain' moment because it sounds like something only a mass murderer would think and he's pretty happy being a popstar, thanks.  
Then he starts laughing over the whole ordeal because there's really not much else to do.

Ally's phone starts to ring- it's _Face to Face _this time, he notes- and Dallas' smiling face shows up on the screen. He makes the stupid mistake of answering.

"Hey, Dallas, it's Austin. I'm taking Ally for a drive and she fell asl-" He's cut off by sudden moaning and groaning and face-sucking noises.

_"Are you sure we should be doing this?" _A girl giggles, breathlessly.

_"She'll never find out."_Ally's boyfriend replies, and Austin can hear the smirk on his face.

He throws the phone to the floor as the car behind him honks. The light's turned green.

Now he had a bit of a reason to think like a murderer.

/  
Telling Ally and watching her angelic smile crumple tears him to pieces and he clutches her to his chest before her tears can even fall. She sobs into his shirt as he strokes her hair soothingly and suddenly it crosses his mind how _easy_it is to be here with Ally, to hold her in his arms, to love her.

He shakes it off quickly.

_…twenty-one…  
_  
For once, Ally's matchmaking skills have actually made a match. Sabrina is _exactly_ his type. She loves music, she was on her college cheer team, and she was _hot._She was fairly smart, too, actually. If she was in college with Ally, she kind of had to be.

He takes her out to IHOP for their fourteenth date (he's counting, God knows why) and she orders the all-you-can-eat pancakes. He smiles widely. _This _is the girl of his dreams.

He observes her dousing her pancakes in what must've been at least half the syrup jug and he laughs when it gets on the ends of her light brown hair.

She looks up at him nervously. "What?"

He smiles at her and his heart beats like _that _and his brain suddenly can't form coherent thoughts and it feels a lot like falling in love.

"Nothing. It's just.. I think I might love you."

Her greens eyes flit over to him and she grabs his hand across the table.  
"I love you, too."

He grins wildly and digs back into his pancakes ravenously. Apparently falling in love made you hungry.

…_twenty-three….._

Of course she's extremely happy for him- thrilled, even- but when he tells her they're getting married her heart sinks lower in her chest a little bit. It's not jealousy, no, that's not even a remote possibility, considering she set up this whole romance in the first place. It's just a little twinge in her stomach that he's getting married first, and she hasn't had a real relationship since she was sixteen.

"You'll be a bridesmaid, right? Because Sabrina wants you to be a bridesmaid. She said you might even be maid of honor."

She grins widely. "Of course I'll be a bridesmaid! Oh, Austin, I'm so happy for you guys!" She wraps her best friend in a huge congratulatory hug and he squeezes her gently to his chest and kisses the top of her head.

"I think you owe me an apology, though." She says, voice muffled from her face being buried in his shirt.

"For what?"

"Doubting my matchmaking skills."

He chuckles. "You're the best matchmaker in the world, Ally Dawson."

/

The ceremony is absolutely beautiful and there is a surprising lack of paparazzi- he's still a pop star, after all. Luckily, he'd always seemed to have a way of evading the public knowing his personal life, so that was a good thing for him and Sabrina.

She dances and laughs and plays the role of maid of honor, holding Sabrina's train while she peed and checking to make sure the cake remained intact until the reception and making sure no one crashed the wedding (again, he _is _a pop star) until she catches the bouquet.

Her heels clatter on the polished floor of the reception hall as she runs out to the white gazebo alone with her stupid purple bouquet, a flask of whiskey and her dangerous thoughts.

Austin excuses himself from the celebratory escapades for a moment and finds his best friend picking the petals off one of the daisies between swigs of whiskey.

"He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me." She whispers, the petals slipping through her fingers.

She doesn't dismiss nor acknowledge his presence for a minute, until she's ripped all the petals off the flower.  
"It's dumb, right? I don't even have a 'he' in mind to not love me."

"It's just a stupid tradition, Als. You didn't even have to go after the bouquet if you hate it so much." He explains, gesturing to the growing pile of shredded petals.

"I do, actually. It's my duty as maid of honor and it just so happens that my hand-eye coordination has improved over the last eight years."

She pauses to take another sip and continues. "Besides, Austin, the problem is not really that I don't have someone that I can currently see myself marrying, the problem is that I haven't had a real relationship since I was fucking sixteen because I don't trust myself enough to get hurt again."

As soon as she says it, hot, angry tears well into her eyes and spill out onto her cheeks, which quickly turn into heavy sobs. "I'm so _stupid." _She whispers, mad at no one but herself, really.

His heart melts because to him, she's still his little Ally, the one who chewed her hair when she was nervous and spilled all of her secrets into a brown leather book, even though the Ally in front of him was a intelligent, mature, admirable woman.  
But she still needed a hug from her best friend.

He wraps his arms around her shoulders. "Ally, don't say that. You're the smartest girl I know." He smiles and whispers into her ear. "Don't tell Sabrina."

She smiles a bit and she recognizes this as Austin's way of always comforting her when she was upset. She had no idea how he did it, but it was pretty damn effective.

"Austin? They're ready to take our photos now." Sabrina calls from the back door of the reception hall.

He stands back up and holds his hand out to Ally, who's still crumpled on the gazebo floor.

"You comin'?"

She shakes her head. "I just need a couple more minutes. I'll be okay out here."

He looks unsurely at her but nods and walks back to join his new wife.

Suddenly a brown-haired male shows up at the gazebo steps.  
"Haven't seen you in a while."

She looks at the figure through her bloodshot eyes with disdain and stands up. "What the hell are you doing here, Dallas?"

He chuckles. "Sabrina's my cousin. You didn't remember that?"

She glares at him. "I didn't really care to remember the intricate details of your life." She spits.

He walks closer to her. "Look, Ally, I know I hurt you. I'm sorry. But remember all the_ good_times we had together?" He comes closer, invading her personal space to brush a piece of stray hair back behind her ear. "You look beautiful."

"Don't flatter me."

"I'm not trying to. I'm simply stating facts, Ally."

"No! Dallas, maybe at some point, I loved you , but you can't cheat on me with some random chick at a party and then waltz back into my life seven years later at my best friend's wedding, especially not after I caught the stupid bouquet, and expect me to fall right back-"

She's cut off by his lips against hers, and she's surprised (but not really) when she feels herself kissing back.

…._twenty-seven…  
_  
Four years later, Austin realizes that his dreams have shifted and Sabrina's not included anymore. Apparently the feeling is mutual.

They never really say anything anymore. Their whole marriage, the one that was supposed to be a fairytale, is now just a matter of killing time.

It's the day after their anniversary when he figures out that he just can't keep living like this.  
He wants to tell her that he wants to file for a divorce, but the thought of hurting her- hurting anyone, actually- makes it really hard. Luckily, Sabrina's never been one to keep her feelings quiet, so one day she returns home from the hospital and tells him she wants out.

In truth, he takes a deep breath of relief.

The whole ordeal takes a total of seven months and it's covered step by step on the covers of every tabloid worth it's money. They call it irreconcilable differences because that's what everyone does and they're not really looking for originality points.  
She gets seventeen million dollars and their dog and he gets his freedom.

For the first time in almost five years now, the house is empty. It's a huge house full of empty rooms and he kind of wants someone to share it with.

He calls Ally.

She doesn't respond, but five minutes later her blue Toyota pulls into his extensive driveway and his doorbell chimes. He opens the door to a jubilant, beaming Ally and her outstretched left hand.  
She rocks a little bit on the balls of her feet, curls bouncing.

"We're getting married!" She shrieks, wrapping her arms around him and then breaking apart and twirling around a bit.

"Wow, Ally, I.. I don't know what to say." He says truthfully. "That's great! Congratulations!"

She's managed to make his heart melt again. Just differently this time.

/  
He performs at her wedding and he watches numbly as she shoves cake into Dallas' mouth and he wishes he could be surprised, but maybe they really had been meant for each other all along.

He watches as Dallas holds her close on the dance floor, and he can't help but notice that her head doesn't fit as well into Dallas' chest as it does his.

But that's irrelevant.

He loves that she's finally happy again, but it's hard to be happy with her when his heart is breaking with every highly ungraceful steps the newlyweds take.

….._thirty-two….  
_  
They lose contact for a while, and it hurts them both. She smiles every time she hears one of his songs on the radio, though, and she still thinks of him when she writes one for another new artist.

She also thinks of him when she names her daughter Monica.  
And it gets to a point where she thinks of him every second of every day and it's not right or healthy anymore because he's her best friend, and he's _been_her best friend for, like, seventeen years (but who's counting, right?) and he's still the one she wants to tell everything to, even though that's supposed to be Dallas.

She gets home from work one day and hears the moaning sounds coming from the bedroom and the high-pitched shrieks.

She doesn't even bother to confront him. She just takes Monica and leaves.

They stay at a hotel for a couple nights and she sends a curt email to her soon-to-be-ex-husband as to which phone number he should use to contact her for the divorce papers and that she'd like to take full custody of Monica, it's the least he can do for them to just stay out of their lives.

Monica gurgles a couple times and she has shining green eyes and through the tears, Ally smiles. She has no clue how she's going to manage this, or where she's going to live, and she wants to curl up in a fetal position for a couple of days and sob about how she should've known he was going to fall back into his old ways and how she never should've trusted him again, but things have changed now. Now she holds the responsibility of another life, and she has to hold her daughter's life at a much higher priority than her own.

So she calls the person that would still be there for her, even after four years of no contact.  
For Monica's sake.

….._thirty-three and a half….._

For the first time since forever, they're at the right place at the right time. They don't have a formal wedding, to be honest, they're both kind of over marriages at this point, but they're more in love than they've ever been and it just feels so easy.

He kisses her hello and kisses her goodbye and holds her close when she's upset and he changes Monica when she's too tired and she's so blissfully happy, it's kind of ridiculous.

His career is gradually coming to a slow, but he's made his millions. He's actually okay with it, it means more time with his family, and his two girls mean more to him than any song ever would.

He returns home from the grocery store one swelteringly hot and muggy evening in July and she's smiling radiantly and doing her little car-dance and Monica is watching from her playpen, eyes shining.

"Wow, what's made you so happy?" He smirks, setting the groceries down on the kitchen counter and ruffling her hair playfully.

She places a positive pregnancy test in front of his eyes and they grow to the size of saucers.  
He smiles hugely and looks at the girl he loves in shock. "Is this really happening?"

She nods. "It is." She throws her arms around his neck enthusiastically and he grabs her abdomen (carefully) and spins her around.

"I am so happy!" She screeches and runs back into the living room to pick up her daughter and give her a big, sloppy kiss on the top of her head.

"YAY!" She yells, running up and down the stairs and through the hallways and he laughs as he puts away the groceries.

He looks over at Monica and smirks. "You know, your mommy is crazy." She laughs in agreement. "Ya." She says, as Ally squeals again from the staircase.

"I hope you grow up to be just like her."

/

"I'm sorry," they tell her.  
The baby is gone.

Her happiness dissolves into heavy, soul-wrenching sobs and it hurts like hell. He knows she blames herself, thinks that she did something wrong, that she didn't give the baby a safe enough home.

He holds her, but this time he has no clue how to console her. He feels it too. He already had loved this child, and he was excited, because as much as he loved Monica and considers her his daughter, she was a constant reminder that Ally had been with someone else and he was looking forward to having that same tether to her, and to just to have a baby of his own, a little being that was a creation of him and Ally.  
He thanks his lucky stars that he still has Monica, though.

But it seems he'd forgotten Ally's habit of running.

This time, she feels a horrible twinge of regret and she wants to turn back around, but she doesn't. She just takes Monica and keeps on driving.

He sees her note on the bed when he wakes up. It doesn't say much.

_I'm so sorry, Austin. I couldn't handle it. I'm not strong enough.  
I love you.  
Maybe we'll find each other again someday._

-Ally

He lets his tears escape. He should've known. He should've stopped her. He should've reminded her that maybe he needs someone to lean on too, that she was being selfish.  
But mostly he cried because he missed her.

The house is empty again.

…_thirty-eight…_

Somehow she's found herself in southern Georgia, working two jobs just to keep their heads above water.

Monica's growing up. She's only six, but she already shows similarities to both her and Dallas. She sees a little bit of Austin in her, too.

It's getting close to Christmas time, and it's getting significantly colder. She scrapes up enough money to buy Monica a new winter coat so she doesn't freeze when they're on the city bus. She decorates the tiny apartment with a single strand of tinsel and a tiny tree, just to get them in a celebratory mood.

She buys Monica one new doll- it's all she can afford, she got sick that one day and therefore missed out on a whole day's paycheck- and leaves it under the tree. She takes some of Monica's current clothes and wraps them, hoping she won't notice, just to make sure her daughter gets to experience the joy of opening presents on Christmas morning.

She cries about it a lot though. It's not what she wants for her. And she knows that if she had just stayed with Austin, she could be a lot happier.

But she was too stubborn and stupid to do that.

So she makes a special Christmas lunch of fried chicken from the deli at the grocery store and soda and hopes it passes as fancy.

/

He goes through about a girl a month now, because none of them are Ally and they will never be Ally.

Sometimes he thinks he's in love but then the stupid rational part of his brain –or maybe it's just his heart- tells him he's not.  
He gets really close to saying it a few times though, but in a way he's afraid of committing to them and then letting them down.

But they make the mansion feel less empty, and for a small amount of time, they make him feel less empty, too.

But Ally Dawson left a pretty big void, and it was becoming apparent that it was impossible to fill.

….._forty-one_…

She packs up everything one day and they're gone as soon as Monica's last day of fourth grade has ended.

"Mama, where are we going?" She asks quietly.

Ally keeps her eyes on the road. "We're going home."

The mansion still has the same passcode as always and she doesn't bother calling him. When he answers, she notices how he's aged. His blonde hair is now sprinkled with a couple of grays, he has a few more defined lines around his face, and he just looks more worldly now.

She doesn't let him speak at all before she breaks down on his front porch.  
"Austin, I know I've fucked up _so_ badly, but I was scared and I'm not scared anymore. I'm finally ready to be here, to be with _you._Because, oh my God, Austin, it's you. It's always been you. You're the person I was meant to be with my whole life except I've been screwing it up for twenty-six fucking years but I love you so much and I could never love anyone more than you except for maybe my daughter but I still love you far too much to stay away any longer and I wanted to come home and Austin please say something because I was really hoping we could stay together for the rest of our lives because we've just had really bad timing and I-"

He takes her into his arms and the world melts away. He kisses her his response.  
_Yes._

…..._ninety-three…._

She's going, he can tell.

"It's getting dark, Austin." She cries. "It's so cold."

He holds her to his chest one last time. "It's okay, baby. You're going to be okay." Hot tears start rolling down his cheeks because she's going and this time he's not going to get her back.

She looks up into his eyes blearily. She can't really see him very clearly anymore, but she can tell it's the man she loves. She smiles faintly.

"We did it, Austin."

"We did what?"

"We stayed together for our whole lives." She laughs.  
He laughs with her, slowly. He strokes her hair the best he can, his hands shaking.

"We did, Ally. We did it."

She smiles as she goes.

/

fin

**A/N Somehow, I'm sort of proud of this. It's a little rushed, I know, but I really wanted to publish something at least decent because it's officially been a year since I published my first story on the archive (fall to pieces). Whoop!  
I know it's somewhat OOC, but I tried to at least keep the foundation of their characters intact. Also,originally this was going to have an extremely sad ending (Ally was going to get hit by a car right after they find each other), but it turns out I felt really bad for them and I couldn't. So this is sort of what happened.**

**Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this and please don't forget to review!**

(:Tessa:


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